Synopsis
“She healed me. She broke me. I set her free. But we are in this together. We will end this together. The rules of this ancient game can’t be broken.”
Nila Weaver no longer recognises herself. She’s left her lover, her courage, and her promise. Two debts down. Too many to go.
Jethro Hawk no longer recognises himself. He’s embraced what he always ran from, and now faces punishment far greater than he feared.
It’s almost time. It’s demanding to be paid.
The Third Debt will be the ultimate test...
Nila
HOW HAD THIS happened?
Where did it all go so wrong?
Jethro was supposed to love me. I was supposed to love him.
Yet he’d given me over to his family. He’d bound the ropes, blindfolded my eyes, and gifted me to his kin.
“Know what time it is, Nila Weaver?” Daniel breathed in my ear.
I jerked away. The restraints around my body meant I couldn’t run, couldn’t fight; I couldn’t even see.
Oh, God.
Please don’t let them do this.
I wanted to scream for Jethro to save me. I wanted him to put an end to this and claim me once and for all. Didn’t our connection mean anything?
You know it’s all different now.
Ever since I’d returned to Hawksridge Hall, things had been different—horribly, horribly different.
The fire crackled in the billiards room where the Hawk men had been playing poker. The air was hot and muggy and laced with cognac fumes.
Tonight, I’d had plans to end whatever changed between Jethro and me forever.
But now…those plans had changed.
Kestrel ran his fingers over my collar. “Relax, little Weaver. It will all be over soon.”
Cut chuckled. “Yes, soon you can go to sleep and pretend none of this happened.”
My ears strained for one other voice. The voice of the man who controlled my heart even though he’d thrown it back in my face.
But only silence greeted me.
Daniel snickered, licking my cheek. “Time to pay, Weaver.”
Someone clapped and in a voice full of darkness and doom said, “It’s time for the Third Debt.”
Two Months Prior...
Nila
I shook my head, my heart smarting with pain. “What happened to you?” I reached for him, wanting to clutch his forearm and reassure myself that our bond was still there.
With a sneer, he sidestepped, staying out of reach. “What happened to me?” Smiling coldly, he made me seem as if I were some idiot child asking for the universe’s secrets. “I got better. That’s what happened to me.”
“I don’t—I don’t understand. You weren’t ill.”
“You wouldn’t understand. No one can understand another’s problems. All you need to know is that I’m cured and I won’t make the same mistakes again.”
I took a step back, goosebumps scattering over my body. “Don’t say that. I’m in love with you. Something like that cannot be undone—”
“Love is a chemical imbalance, Ms. Weaver. I am no longer imbalanced.” He came closer. “Don’t get cold feet on your invitation. You promised you would come, and you don’t want to give me a reason to punish you so soon…do you?”
My skin pinpricked with panic. That sentence should’ve dripped with eroticism. But it wasn’t. It was cold…lifeless…like him.
Snapping his fingers, Jethro held out his hand. He kept his digits curled slightly so I couldn’t see the tattoo marks on the tips. “Come. I want to be back at Hawksridge before sunrise.”
Jethro
Nila dropped the jumper onto the desk, cupping her breasts. “Does this count as acceptable to you?”
I couldn’t breathe.
Everything I’d been running from made my head pound, my cock beg, and the drugs in my system to fucking disintegrate.
What was it about her? Why did she have this control over me? And why was I utterly, ridiculously helpless around her?
God fucking help me.
Didn’t she know the more she antagonised me and made me slip, the more likely Cut would give her to Daniel and fucking slaughter me in my sleep? I wanted to strike her—hammer the precariousness of our situation home.
“Why did you bring me here?” she murmured, skirting the desk.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the hard pinpricks on her chest. She couldn’t be cold—not in this furnace. That meant she was turned on.
My mind instantly went to one question. Is she wet?
“Kes told you. Our secrets are now yours.”
“I don’t think that’s the only reason.” Closing the distance, she licked her bottom lip. “I think you wanted me off the estate, so you could have me without anyone seeing.” Her voice layered with sex and invitation. “You wanted me away from the cameras, so you could drop the act and show me the truth.”
Fuck.
I cleared my throat. “What truth?”
“That all of this is a lie. That you’re still the man I fell for—playing the same game you said you were sick of before I left.”
Shaking my head, I tried to clear my thoughts. “You’re once again delusional.” Swallowing hard, I ordered, “Go down to the sorting floor. I have a meeting to take care of—”
“No,” she breathed. “I’m not going anywhere until you stop being an asshole and show me the real you.” Closing the final distance, she stood beside me, crackling with mischief and lust.
Locking eyes, she undid the button and zipper of her jeans. “Don’t hide from me, Jethro. I can’t stay strong if you cut me out.”
My legs bunched to push the swivel chair backward. One heave and I could launch myself free and run from her web. But somehow, I couldn’t. I remained tethered in place; breathing fast, fear swamping my lungs.
She grabbed my wrist. “Don’t fight it. You can’t fight the inevitable.” Without a word, she pressed my hand into her trousers.
Teasers
About the Author
Pepper Winters wears many roles. Some of them include writer, reader, sometimes wife. She loves dark, taboo stories that twist with your head. The more tortured the hero, the better, and she constantly thinks up ways to break and fix her characters. Oh, and sex... her books have sex.
She loves to travel and has an amazing, fabulous hubby who puts up with her love affair with her book boyfriends.
Her Dark Erotica books include:
Tears of Tess (Monsters in the Dark #1)
Quintessentially Q (Monsters in the Dark #2)
Her Grey Romance books include:
Destroyed
Giveaway
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